U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,031, hereby incorporated by reference as if fully disclosed herein, teaches methods for constructing transformable truss-structures in a variety of shapes. The teachings therein have been used to build structures for diverse applications, including architectural uses, public exhibits and unique folding toys.
One group of embodiments disclosed in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,031 patent is expanding structures that are made up of scissor-pairs—linear structural elements that are pinned together by a centrally located pivot. Such scissor-pairs are joined to one another either directly, or via pairs of “hub elements” that attach scissors that lie in different planes. All members of such expanding structures are thus “doubled”, whether as strut-pairs or as hub pairs.
The reason for doubling these elements is to synchronize the movement of the structure. Without such pairing of these members, the structure would tend to be “floppy”, its movement would be ill-determined.
This type of structure, while advantageous, can nonetheless be improved. In particular, the parts required to build a particular structure are more numerous than for an equivalent structure that is not transformable, i.e. static. Therefore, it would be of benefit to provide for a transformable structure with a reduced part count.